a comparative study on environmental awareness...
TRANSCRIPT
1
A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AND ENVIRONMENTALLY BENEFICIAL
BEHAVIOR IN INDIA
Hannah Hoerisch, April 2002 for CMS ENVIS Centre
Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. Objectives 3
3. Methodology 3
Part I
Factors contributing to the level of environmental awareness
4. Environmental education 5
a. Mass media 6
b. Institutional media 12
c. Traditional media 16
5. Additional factors 16
Political background
Culture, religion and tradition
Exposure to environmental pollution
Part II
6. Level of awareness 19
Part III
7. Behavior towards environment 20
8. Conclusion 21
9. References 24
10. Appendix 24
2
1.0 Introduction
Both developing and developed countries are facing serious environmental problems.
While some of the problems might be alike due to their global nature (e.g. global
warming, depletion of the ozone layer), others are specifically local ones. How do
people out of different cultures perceive these problems? How do they react to them?
The aim of this study is to figure out what factors are most important in explaining
different levels of awareness concerning environmental problems and to compare the
level of awareness as well as the actual behavior towards environment of people living
in developing and developed countries.
As the countries of study India and the Federal Republic of Germany have been
chosen. India is thought to represent a developing country while Germany gives an
example of an economically developed country. An additional aspect when choosing the
countries of study was to use the competence of the author who lives in Germany, but
has the great possibility to do some fieldwork studies in India and to work together with
Indian colleagues.
The design of the study has three stages:
First, information on India as far as environmental awareness and environmentally
friendly behavior are concerned will be obtained by both fieldwork and a systematic
survey of the available literature. This paper will focus exclusively on the first part of the
study design.
Second, the same will be done for Germany.
The third and final step will be to compare the results obtained for India and Germany.
The first part of the country study will focus on the different factors that might be able to
explain awareness of environmental problems. The ultimate objective is to find the most
decisive factors in creating awareness of ecological issues, since this is the first step in
developing effective campaigns to promote a higher level of environmental awareness
among the population.
3
The special emphasis of this study is on the role of media in creating environmental
awareness with the underlying concept of media being a very broad one. The different
media sources considered can be categorized as follows:
(a) Mass media (e.g. radio, television, newspaper and magazines)
(b) Institutional media (e.g. school, government officials or village leaders)
(c) Traditional media (e.g. family members, other relatives, friends and neighbors,
NGO work)
As a first explanation of environmental awareness modern mass media will be
considered.
It is still to be confirmed that the role of mass media is one of the most important factors
underlying the knowledge of environmental problems: This can only be true on the
conditions that first, mass media are accessible to large proportions of the population,
second, are spending some time on environmental issues and third, people are
interested in information on ecological issues provided by the media so that they view or
listen to the corresponding programs as well as read newspaper articles or other written
publications dealing with environmental issues.
Second, representing the institutional media the importance of school education in
creating environmental awareness and training environmentally friendly behavior will be
examined: the aim is to find out if and to what degree and how successful knowledge on
ecological issues is taught at schools.
A third factor being able to explain the level of environmental awareness might be
traditional media, the social environment of a person. If discussions on environmental
issues within the family or with friends, neighbors and colleagues take place quite often
or even regularly this will probably influence a person’s awareness and behavior in an
environmental friendly way. The work of NGOs and the support they perceive by the
Ministry of Environment & Forests will be considered, too.
Forth, in addition to the role of media the degree to which a person is exposed to
environmental pollution in every day life might influence its awareness of ecological
4
problems. Suffering from a disease or permanent health problems due to environmental
pollution will probably even enhance the level of awareness.
After discussing the reasons that promote environmental awareness, the second part of
each country study will focus on the resulting different levels of awareness itself. The
question is if the level of awareness of environmental problems is higher in more
developed countries than in less developed ones or vice versa. Whatever should be the
case it should be indicated by the explanations offered above.
The third part of each country study will finally examine the individual’s actual behavior
towards environment. This stresses that it is important to make a difference between the
way in which people actually behave and their awareness of environmental problems
that is a prerequisite, but not necessarily sufficient to develop an environmental friendly
behavior. It is, for example, possible that somebody is quite aware of the fact that his
behavior is detrimental to natural environment, but as long as he is not convinced that it
is important to preserve the environment he might not be willing or motivated to change
his behavior.
2.0 Objectives
The specific aspects to study would be
1) to find out the most decisive factors in creating environmental awareness
2) to evaluate the role of modern mass media in this process
3) to explore how much time media are spending on environmental issues
4) to know if people are interested in information on environment provided by the media
5) to assess the importance of education in creating environmental awareness
6) to find out if education in school is training an environmentally friendly behavior
7) to figure out if the social environment of a person, e.g. its family, friends, neighbors
and colleagues as well as the work of NGOs, is able to partially explain different
levels of environmental awareness
8) to work out if exposure to environmental pollution in every day life influences the
level of environmental awareness
5
9) to assess the resulting level of environmental awareness in India
10) to assess the actual level of environmental friendly behavior
3.0 Methodology
The planned study will be based both on fieldwork (a household survey as well as
interviews with media managers, experts, government officials and teachers, a list of the
interviewed persons is available in appendix) and a survey of literature and secondary
information available.
a. Survey of literature and secondary information
By studying literature an attempt will be made to find out how many time and space
media like television, radio and daily newspapers provide for environmental issues and
what kind of issues are tackled: Are the problems in general described and their causes
explained? Or is the main emphasis on politics concerning environment like legislation
and implementation? Which specific problems are tackled? How often are global
environmental problems in comparison to national or local ones are addressed to?
To get an overview of Indian environmental policy and to figure out if there is any
regulation by law that environmental issues should be dealt with is a further attempt of
the literature survey.
b. Interviews
All three kinds of interviews (those with media managers and journalists, with experts
and officials and with teachers) have been designed as open interviews. The interviews
with media managers will tackle the following topics: Which environmental problems are
mentioned in Indian media? What is the aim of media when dealing with ecological
issues: information, education or entertainment? To whom (age, level of education etc.)
6
do environmental programs address? Why are media spending not even more time on
environmental issues? Experts and officials will be asked on their view of how
environmental awareness comes into existence and what can be done to promote a
more environmentally friendly behavior. The potential and actual role of the Ministry of
Environment & Forests in creating environmental awareness will be examined, too.
Interviewing teachers offers the chance to obtain some information on the question if
teachers are obliged to teach on environmental issues by fixed curricula, how
extensively this is done and if there have been changes in teaching on environment
over the last few years. Another interesting aspect is if theoretical teaching is
complemented by practical training, special projects and events organized by schools.
c. Household survey
The main objectives of the household survey are to find the most important factors
explaining environmental awareness, to assess the individual level of environmental
awareness and to learn about the person’s behavior towards environment.
For this reason the questions asked have been designed to find out the sources of
information on environmental issues, e.g. media or education at school. An attempt will
be made to assess how the interviewed person thinks of environmental pollution: It is an
important and interesting issue? Does the interviewed person feel exposed to some
kind of environmental pollution in its every day life? What environmental issues are
considered the most urgent ones? Additionally, the amount of the interviewed person’s
knowledge concerning environmental issues will be judged. Another objective is to find
out if the interviewed person is in some respect behaving in an environmentally friendly
way.
The household survey will cover 100 households in different areas in Delhi. Sector IV,
Timapur, Civil Line in the North, Pocket IV, Shakar Pur in the East, Minto Road
Complex in Central Delhi, Rajouri Garden in the West and Lajpat Nagar near Central
Market in the South of Delhi.
7
Based on the assumption that Indian and German middle-class households are most
comparable (as opposed to lower- or upper-class households) the study will focus on
middle class households.
4.0 Environmental education
The most important landmark for environmental education at an international level was
without a doubt the International Conference on Environmental Education organized by
UNESCO and UNEP at Tbilisi in former USSR in 1977. The goals of environmental
education were defined as creating environmental awareness, impart general
knowledge for a basic understanding of environment, acquiring environmental friendly
attitudes and values and to generate new patterns of behavior towards environment.
The more recently held United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, popularly known as the Earth Summit, adopted an action
plan for Sustainable Development, Agenda 21. Chapter 36 which is devoted to
education states that "Education is critical for promoting sustainable development and
improving the capacity of people to address environment and development
issues"(100).
Education without communication is simply impossible. Communication in turn will only
work with an appropriate medium. In the case of environmental education at educational
establishments classes at school, college or universities level serve as this medium. As
far as environmental education outside educational establishments is concerned mass
media and traditional media like family, neighbors and colleagues have the role of the
medium that enables people to communicate successfully.
In the following paragraph these three different kinds of media (institutional, mass and
traditional media) will be examined to find out on their efforts made in creating
environmental awareness and how more or less successful they are.
a) The role of mass media in creating environmental awareness
8
The mass media considered here trying to explain environmental awareness are
newspapers, radio and television due to the fact that these are the most widely and
frequently used modern mass media in both India and Germany. First, I will deal with
the supply side, the coverage of environmental issues in the media, second we will take
a look at the side of demand, considering the aspect if people are interested in the
offered information on environment and use it.
Since independence, the number of Indian newspapers has multiplied several folds.
Today Indian newspapers are brought out in 93 languages and dialects. In the
household survey, 57% of the interviewed persons stated to read the newspaper for 30
to 60 minutes per day. With an average of about 50 minutes the daily amount of time
spent on reading the newspaper, “the backbone of news” in India, is considerably high.
While the figures mentioned above underline the importance of newspaper in spreading
information, its limits should be mentioned, too: illiteracy in India is around 51%. In
addition to that, 93% of the several million copies are sold in the large towns with
population over 100.000. This accounts only for 10 percent of the population.
How extensively are environmental issues covered in the daily newspapers? After
Times of India has abandoned its weekly column, none of India’s daily newspapers has
a regular space reserved for environmental news so that these are only addressed as
government, ministry and legal news as well as in contexts of science or health. The
focus is mainly on local and national issues like air, water and noise pollution as well as
deforestation. In contrast to that global environmental problems are only mentioned very
rarely, e.g. if they are the topic of international conferences.
In general, the demand of journalists when writing on environment is neither an
educational or motivational approach nor offering scientific explanation or background
information (exceptions are environmental issues that are on the top of the political
agenda, e.g. CNG (compressed natural gas)), but it is to inform their readers on the
latest trends in political news related to environment. A slight tendency towards a
motivational coverage of environmental issues can be observed in the regional
language newspapers, e.g. when enlightening farmers on the negative consequences of
the use of pesticides.
9
Roughly it can be said that India’s most important newspapers like Times of India, The
Hindu, Hindustan Times or Indian Express have an article on environmental issues at
least every second day with Times of India doing the best job in terms of frequency. The
low level of coverage on environment can be explained by different reasons: First, the
fairly new field of environmental journalism which starting point was only in 1994 after
the Bhopal catastrophe is not considered as an attractive one by journalists, the majority
of the journalists covering environment has been asked to do so. Of course, there are
several environmental journalists who have chosen their subject out of true
commitment, too. Second, environment is competing with all the other issues covered in
the newspaper whereby the most severe selection criterion is the news worthiness of an
issue. The interest of the reader as far as news on environment are concerned is
supposed to be still fairly low by the editors.
Nevertheless all of the interviewed editors and journalists felt that there has been an
increase in the number of articles on environment both due to a higher awareness and
interest of their readers (this is especially true for the younger generation) and the
visible deterioration of the state of nature.
Although its number of readers is only around 16.000, India’s only environmental
magazine “Down to Earth” has to be mentioned when writing on environment and
media, because it fills an important lack in Indian media and their coverage of
environment. Started in 1992 this magazine is a kind of chronology of Indian
environmental history. The outstanding aspect of its approach is not only the coverage
of a broad variety of environment related topics (ranking from policy to science, from
local to global level) and their scientific background, but also the belief that addressing
environmental issues in a developing country like India is not a matter of luxury, but of
pure livelihood.
Radio is cheap, most easily accessible and radio signals cover almost the whole
country.
However, on average there are only 4.4 radio / transistors sets per 100 persons. 80
percent are in urban homes, only about six million sets left with 525 million rural
10
population. Furthermore the frequency of listening to the radio is relatively low: only
35% of the interviewees declared to listen to the radio regularly, most of them ranking
between half an hour and two hours per day.
In addition to the relatively small number of people listening to the radio the role of radio
in creating environmental awareness can not be considered an important one due to the
fact that there are only very few regular environmental programs, although there is an
instruction by Supreme Court for all media that programs on environment should be
broadcast: Motivated by the Ministry of Environment &Forests Delhi FM is broadcasting
two weekly programs on environment, “Kinare – Kinare” and “Ao Dilli Savaren”.
Otherwise, pollution of environment is only unsystematically tackled in programs
designed for special target groups, e.g. rural population, industrial workers or in city
programs, in women’s or children’s programs. The issues mentioned and the way they
are dealt are naturally adjusted to the target group and the background of the program:
science programs focus on scientific explanations and new technical developments,
children’s programs have a more educational and motivational approach, city programs
are addressing local problems like air, water and noise pollution and so on.
On the national level of broadcasting news on environment are very scarce, if news on
environment are broadcast this is most often at the regional level.
In sum, radio is well below its potential in creating environmental awareness and over
the last few years no increase in broadcasts on environment can be observed.
Nevertheless, there has been at least one progressive approach in the use of radio in
environmental education that should be mentioned: In 1998, All India Radio, the Indian
National Radio Network, addressed environmental issues such as water, air and noise
pollution, deforestation, solid waste disposal, organic farming and other topics in a 52-
episode entertainment-education radio serial “Yeh Kahan Aa Gaye Hum” (“Where have
we arrived?”), a story of rural background in which a factory settles near a small village.
The entertainment-education communication strategy purposely designs and
implements a media message to both entertain and educate, in order to increase
audience members’ knowledge, create favorable attitudes and change behavior. “Yeh
Kahan Aa Gaye Hum” was produced under the leadership of Mrs. Usha Bhasin with the
11
assistance of the Central Pollution Control Board of India. This serial was broadcast
weekly with repeated versions from June to December via 31 radio stations covering
seven Indian states in the densely populated Hindi-speaking areas of northern India.
Due to the wide preprogram publicity via radio, television, press and NGOs working in
the broadcast area it was able to attract a listenership of around 100.000 persons. While
the serial itself addressed environmental issues in an entertaining manner, trying to
contact the listeners in their every day life context, the epilogues usually delivered by a
credible media celebrity advertised the educational message. The approach was an
interactive one: A competitive spirit was fostered among listeners by awarding prices for
the quality of provided feedback, outstanding community work by listeners in the realm
of environmental conservation was also recognized. Impact studies accompanying the
broadcasting process showed that the radio serial provoked not only past-broadcast
discussion, but also the founding of clubs in which members listened to the serial
collectively and started campaigns to save the environment.
“Yeh Kahan Aa Gaye Hum” is an excellent example that the use of entertainment-
education communication strategies in the field of environment can be equally
successful as in social ones in which it has been practiced before. In my opinion, this
approach, especially, but not only via the medium radio that is able to reach the less
educated and rural parts of the population, is an extremely promising one so that its
chances should not be missed in the future.
Due to the high level of illiteracy in India, electronic media are in a key position.
Furthermore, inquiries have shown that both radio and television are perceived as
authoritative and friendly media by vast percentages of the population. Since India’s 45
million television sets cover 86.5 per cent of the country’s population, television is one of
the most powerful effective means of propaganda and persuasion. Over 10 million
Indian homes have cable and satellite connections. Television has become a new
status symbol even in remote villages. In rural areas people have at least sometimes
access to television e.g. in small restaurants and long route busses. Probably, the rapid
growth rate of television sets (3 million annually) will even increase the importance of
television in the future. A further advantage of television as an educational media is that
12
it is helpful in teaching practical work: A televised presentation can be as clear as a
face-to-face demonstration.
With an average amount of 138 minutes spent on watching television per day and more
than 50% out of all the interviewees watching television two to three hours per day,
television dominates newspaper and radio not only in the frequency of usage, but also
in the amount of time spent on it.
Considering these promising prerequisites for the use of television in environmental
education it is good news that - compared to newspapers and radio - television does a
good job in covering environmental issues: Discovery Channel, National Geographic
Channel and Animal Planet Channel are broadcasting exclusively on endangered
species, wild and sea life. The national channels are regulated by law to offer
environmental programs. Doordashan the most important channel of dissemination that
reaches all over the country has three regular programs on environment: each of the
weekly broadcasts of scientifically profound “Earth Matters” focuses on one special
environmental problem. Targeted at educated people “Earth Matters” offers information
on the sources, explains the consequences of the problem considered and gives
suggestions for solution by changing individual behavior. Weekly “Terraquiz”, India's
first environmental quiz show on television, is a competition of the top ranking schools
from Green Olympiad and is sent between Hindu and English news. “Nature Plus” is
even broadcast daily, most often however at midnight. The broadcasting of a forth
weekly programme of 30 minutes named “Earth” in form of a magazine that subsidizes
successful initiatives of individuals is planned by the Ministry of Environment & Forest in
cooperation with Doordashan. In addition to that BBC’s “Earth Report” offers exclusively
information on environment and with the daily broadcast of “The new adventures of
Captain Planet” on Cartoon Network there is at least one program on environmental
issues especially designed for children.
As for radio it is true for television that even if there is no consistent programming on
environment ecological issues are tackled in the news as well as in children’s, health,
science, rural, agricultural and educational programs.
13
In contrast to radio and newspaper, politicians have recognized televisions’ potential in
creating environmental awareness so that the Ministry of Environment and Forests
grants special money for the production of films on environment. Although adds on
television are highly cost intensive the Ministry of Environment & Forests has proposed
to Discovery Channel to produce 50 seconds of informational adds on nature and
pollution that should be broadcast four times per day and changed monthly.
Having discussed the medias’ supply of information on environment, this paragraph will
focus on demand side (using the results of the household survey): To what extent do
people perceive environmental information provided by the media? What kind of
medium is most extensively used?
A vast majority of 80% of the respondents claimed that they were informing themselves
regularly on environmental issues. Out of these 80%, 93.8% used television, 82.7%
used newspapers while only 35.8% mentioned radio programs as a source of
information. These figures, once more underline that television and newspaper play a
more important role in environmental awareness creation than radio does, both out of
the perspective of supply and demand on information on environment. 70% of the
interviewees stated the amount of information on environment to be exactly right, 24%
felt that it was too low.
To sum up, we have to ask the following questions: What role do Indian media play in
creating environmental awareness? What are their weaknesses, what their chances?
What could be done to enhance their effectiveness in raising the level of consciousness
of ecological problems?
A common weak point shared by radio, TV and newspaper in India is that there are no
journalists specialized (only) on environmental issues, that journalism on environment is
neither a part of the education as a journalist nor is there a possibility of further training
in this field. Consequently, the frequency and quality of coverage on environment
depends to a high degree on the personal interest and commitment of the journalists
and editors. Further typical limitations of modern mass media in India are the language,
14
the educational and the urban – rural biases that make it necessary to design special
programs for all the different target groups if the aim is to reach a vast part of the
population.
A general problem in using media for education is the lack of feedback and control of
the audience or readership so that it is difficult to assess the impact of educational
broadcasting. A support system that is needed for an educational message to deliver it
to its target group can be offered only in few cases, the same is true for a deepening of
information gained through the usage of media, e.g. via sharing experiences through
discussions.
Interestingly, only television and radio have an educational and motiva tional approach
when dealing with environmental issues, while newspaper editors feel that their job is
limited to providing their readership with information.
The active campaign policy of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the guiding
jurisdiction of Supreme Court and the activism of NGO’s have been able to promote
news on environment more forcefully so that an increase in the coverage of
environment over the last few years can be observed for both television and newspaper.
A definite obstacle for environment playing an even more prominent role in media is
commercialization. Since many editors feel that “you can get no money out of
environment”, environment is not an agenda.
Despite of all the limitations for medias’ use in increasing environmental awareness of
the population, medias’ role in that respect is an enormous one. The focus of Indian
media when covering environment is definitely on local and typical Indian problems like
water and air pollution, deforestation and on the campaigns launched by Ministry of
Environment and Forests (e.g. against the use of crackers at Deewali or the promotion
of bags out of natural materials instead of plastic) as well as government politics while
ecological problems at the global level are neglected to a great extent. It is amazing to
see that people asked to brainstorm the environmental problems they have heard about
mention exactly the issues covered in Indian media as it was revealed by the household
15
survey conducted for this study. This fact gives strong evidence to the power of media
in communicating environmental issues.
People themselves seem to be convinced of the dominant role of media in creating
environmental awareness anyway: More than half of the interviewees (52%) declared
that the information provided by media has been most important in making them aware
of environmental problems.
b) Institutional media (education at school)
In 1986 environmental education became an integral component of National Policy on
Education for the first time after independence. The policy stated: "there is a need to
create consciousness of the environment which must permeate all ages and all sections
of the society beginning with the child. Environmental consciousness should inform
teaching in schools and colleges and should be integrated in the entire education
process". Although there was no separate environmental education policy and plan of
action either at the Union or the State levels, environmental education had been
influenced by politics and plans of other sectors and strategies of environmental
education have been outlined stage-wise and subject-wise in the National Curriculum
Frame Work 1987. By scanning the curriculum evidence has been found that
environmental education concepts in terms of awareness and knowledge seem to be
adequately covered, while the development of skills for the study of environment and
environmental ethics, attitudes and actions need strengthening (Bandhu, p.187).
The most recent developments are the introduction of Environmental Science as
compulsory course for all the undergraduates after the invention of Supreme Court and
the introduction of Environmental Studies (EVS) as a curricula area at primary stage
(1st to 5th class). EVS combines science with social studies and environment and
stresses the link between teaching and the immediate environment of the child. The
interviews conducted with both government and public school principals and teachers in
the South of Delhi showed that EVS is already taught at some of the schools and will be
introduced in the other ones during the next months. The age of the children at primary
stage naturally requires a practical or even project based approach of teaching
16
environmental issues. Not surprisingly, the teachers for EVS reported that the emphasis
of their efforts was rather to create awareness on environmental issues and to give the
children concrete suggestions how to behave in a more environmentally friendly way
than explaining the scientific background of environmental problems. Although the
introduction of EVS in primary stage can definitely welcomed, since it stresses the
importance of environmental issues by granting them an own subject and motivates
children at an early age to deal with problems of environmental pollution, it is too early
to evaluate how successful a subject like EVS can be in creating environmental
awareness and altering the behavior of the children in an more environmentally friendly
way. A problem EVS has to face is a lack of teachers that were prepared to teach
environmental issues during their professional education. How to teach on environment
and to sensitize school children for their possibility to contribute to a cleaner
environment has not at all been tackled in the professional education of Indian teachers.
Due to this fact, the personal commitment of teachers to issues covered in EVS gains
crucial importance.
All schools including those that had not yet introduced EVS reported that they were
teaching environmental issues although some of the schools were not aware that they
are even obliged to do so by curriculum.
At the upper levels (6th to 12th grade) environmental concepts are extensively covered in
other subjects like science, geography, economics and sociology, but there is no special
subject focusing on environment and consequently no specific grade for knowledge on
environmental issues. Through all levels a stress on local or India’s national
environmental problems, first of all pollution of air, water and pollution by waste, more
than global ones like depletion of ozone layer or greenhouse effect can be observed.
This might be partially due to the more practical and motivational than scientific
approach as mentioned above.
A common feature of nearly all interviewed schools is an increase in the amount of time
spent on teaching on environment. The explanations for this phenomenon offered by
the school principals were the deterioration of the state of nature, a growing level of
17
awareness towards environmental pollution as well as a more forceful environmental
education policy launched by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Supreme
Court.
A new approach to address environmental issues at school is the Eco-club scheme
that aims to bring NGO’s more closely to the school system. It has been introduced in
2001 and up to now a coverage of 100 high schools chosen by the district
administration in each of India’s 559 districts has been realized (a coverage of 100 high
schools per district results in a coverage of all high schools in 40% of the districts).
Further expansion is planned. The most important difference to normal classes on
environment is the project manner Eco-club scheme uses to address environmental
issues. These projects that are suggested by the Ministry of Environment and Forests
tackle a wide range of topics, the schools can choose on their own which campaigns
they want to launch: The projects range from campaigns like "Say no to plastic bags",
against the use of crackers at Deewali or campaigns promoting the use of natural colors
at Holi to efforts in creating a green and clean surrounding of the school by collecting
waste and planting trees and flowers. In addition to that, projects on how to save energy
and offering information on renewable energies have been launched. Most of the
projects urge the children to deal with environmental issues they are confronted with in
their every day life and give concrete suggestions how to behave in an environmentally
friendly way. The idea of the Ministry is that among the younger part of the population
awareness of environmental problems is quite high, but this awareness will only result in
a environmentally beneficial behavior if the students are told how to react. The
campaigns mentioned above are fostered by special competitions organized by the
Ministry of Environment and Forests, e.g. poster painting, essay writing or debates. The
winners receive money prices additionally to the small annual amount of financial aid
(4000 rupees) every Eco-club is granted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
The publicity of events like these and the role of children as multipliers in their families
and neighborhoods even enhances the effectiveness of Eco-clubs and extends it to
groups different from schoolchildren.
18
Eco-clubs usually meet once or twice per week under the guidance of a teacher.
Especially considering the lack of education of teachers on how to teach environmental
issues, it has to be appreciated that Eco-club teachers are not only offered special
literature, but also further training in the form of workshops organized by the Ministry in
close cooperation with NGOs. Although participation in Eco-club activities is voluntary,
the number of students involved in Eco-club activities is usually ranging around 100 to
150 and by this, even exceeds the target figure of the Ministry of Environment & Forests
of 50 students per Eco-club. Furthermore, Eco-club teachers who are selected by the
criterion of personal interest in ecological issues by the school’s principal reported great
commitment of students to Eco-club related activities.
In addition to the introduction of EVS and Eco-club scheme, the Ministry evaluated all
textbooks used in 8th to 10th grade in nine Indian states to figure out their content of
environmental issues. This project sponsored by the World Bank aims at rewriting
textbooks to enhance the coverage of environmental issues in subjects like languages
and social studies.
What is the contribution of school education to the prevailing level of environmental
awareness?
Recent developments in the education at Indian schools like the introduction of EVS or
Eco-club definitively prove that as far as educational policy is concerned there is an
understanding for the importance of promoting environmental issues. In my opinion,
Eco-club scheme is a very successful new approach to sensitize children for
environmental problems in a motivating manner that could have lasting effects on their
behavior towards environment. The next step to take is to spread the Eco-club scheme
more forcefully to cities other than New Delhi and rural areas. The introduction of EVS
as an independent subject is an example for the upgrading of environmental issues and
will enable teachers to address ecological subjects more extensively and effectively.
Summing over all age groups, 67% of the interviewees reported that they have been
taught environmental issues at school in contrast to 24% who had not (9% could no
more remember). That the efforts in teaching on environment have been enhanced over
19
the last few years is confirmed by the results of the household survey: a clear positive
correlation between young age and the coverage of environmental issues at school
could be observed. It will be interesting to watch over the next years if these intensified
efforts in teaching on environment at school level will be able to enhance the level of
environmental awareness and lead to a changed behavior towards environment. At this
point of time it is still too early for an evaluation of how successful these reinforced
efforts in teaching on environment will be, nevertheless the tendency can be welcomed.
c) Traditional media
Although there is no doubt that the traditional media like direct interaction and
communication of an individual with his family, friends, neighbors or environmental
activists can play an important role in enhancing environmental awareness, another
perspective would stress that the frequency of discussions on environment or, in more
general terms, the use of traditional media is more an indicator of the prevailing level of
environmental awareness than a factor contributing to it. For this reason, traditional
media will be discussed only very briefly.
In the household survey, only 11% of the interviewed persons stated to have
discussions on ecological issues quite often, while 60% sometimes or rarely and 29%
never discussed environmental pollution. By this, traditional media as far as the
personal environment is concerned do not seem to be a major factor in contributing to
the actual level of environmental awareness. According to the argument mentioned
above these figures can be rather interpreted as an indicator of a low level of
environmental awareness.
To support the work of NGOs dealing with environmental issues the Ministry of
Environment & Forests started the National Environmental Awareness Campaign in
1986 with a yearly amount of 300 to 400.000 rupees. Every year nation wide spread
regional resource agencies select more than 5.000 NGOs who are each granted 10.000
to 25.000 rupees to conduct campaigns on the topic of the year that is chosen by the
ministry’s project team. The topics, e.g. water conservation or moderate use of
20
pesticides, are orientated on national, especially rural more than global need and try to
reach “the right people in the right manner” as can be seen by the broad variety in which
the campaigns are conducted: in the form of conferences, lectures, puppet shows,
ralleys or competitions. It has to be appreciated that from last year on the campaigns
include an action-oriented component, since it has been realized that the impact of the
campaigns launched to create environmental awareness in the general public can be
deepened if there is some practical training in addition to the mere offer of information.
In my opinion, the special importance of the National Environmental Awareness
Campaign is that it is an effective instrument to target the rural and less educated part
of the population.
5.0 Additional factors in explaining environmental awareness
Due to the fact that environmental education via media (defined in the broad sense
mentioned above) is supposed to play an especially important or even dominant role in
creating environmental awareness the focus of this study on the contribution of media to
the prevalent level of environmental awareness has been chosen. Nevertheless there is
no doubt that there are additional factors influencing the level of environmental
awareness. Since they are not the topic of this study at least some of them will be
numerated very briefly:
The degree to which environmental issues are set on the political agenda is not only an
indicator of the prevailing level of environmental awareness itself, but will also influence
the general awareness among the population. At the national level of politics Indian
constitutional, legal and institutional arrangements concerning environment form a good
basis for environmental protection, but implementation still remains a huge problem: "In
our own country, in the post independence period our attitude was dominated by
developmental growth and we did not have a culture of pollution control. (…) The total
insensitivity at the bureaucratic / administrative level, which persists still, has given the
nation a very heavy backlog of pollution and ecological degradation" (Bandhu, p.100).
21
The very active policy of the Indian Ministry of Environment & Forests in creating
environmental awareness has to be appreciated: In addition to new Religious
convictions and traditions highly influenced by the cultural context in which an individual
lives may also contribute to its level of environmental awareness and influence its
behavior towards environment. Both the religious teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism,
Jainism and Christianity that is dominant in Germany contain messages about the
importance of the environment and how to live harmoniously with our surroundings. In
addition to that, "India has a long tradition of using environment as the basis of learning.
For example, (our Father of Nation), late Mahatma Gandhi in his Basic Education
Programme laid stress on the need for (…) correlation of curriculum with the productive
activity and the physical and social environment" (Bandhu, p.113).
Exposure to environmental pollution
Exposure to environmental pollution in every day life could be another factor
contributing to an individual’s level of awareness of environmental pollution. In this
context, it will be discussed only very briefly, because this factor cannot be used in
campaigns to enhance the level of environmental awareness as long as deteriorating
the state of nature is not considered as a desirable mean.
An overwhelming majority of interviewees, 98%, reported to feel exposed to
environmental pollution in every day life with air pollution mentioned by 97% being the
most prominently kind of pollution. Approximately half of the interviewed persons had
recognized water pollution and waste to be a problem they had to face in their daily life,
23% felt disturbed by noise pollution. In addition to that, 66% of the interviewed had
ever had or were currently facing health problems due to environmental pollution with
asthma or other breathing problems mentioned by 40%, followed by headaches (22%),
eye irritation (19%) and allergies (6%).
Although these figures show impressively that people feel highly exposed to
environmental pollution or are even suffering from health problems attributed to
environmental pollution, no statistical significant correlation between the level of
environmental awareness and the feeling of being exposed to environmental pollution
22
as well as to health problems could be found. This surprising fact underlines the
importance of education in creating environmental awareness, because the own
experience of pollution in every day life does not seem to be able to sensitize people
towards their natural environment as long as no further information or communication
on environmental problems takes place.
An interesting question that cannot be answered in this context is if the same is true for
the rural population who is much more dependent on the surrounding natural
environment than the urban one that has been the target group of this study.
6.0 Level of environmental awareness
After discussing the most important factors in creating environmental awareness, their
potentials and weaknesses as well as looking at their specific presence in India, the
next paragraph will focus on the resulting actual level of environmental awareness.
Although more than tree third of the interviewees claimed to feel that environmental
pollution is an extremely urgent problem, their confidence in this belief weakened when
comparing the priority of environmental pollution with other problems Indian society has
to face. Unemployment was considered to be a more serious problem by 71%,
insufficient education by 66% and poverty by 52%, while 39% thought of crime, 37% of
corruption and 22% of religious or social conflicts as more urgent problems to be
tackled than environmental pollution.
It is striking that people do think of the problems mentioned above as interrelated, but
do not see the connection between environmental destruction and many of India’s
urgent problems. This is probably one reason for the fact that priorities are generally not
set on environment. An education policy launched on arising a higher level of
environmental awareness should stress addressing the causal relationship between
destruction of environment on the one hand and social as well as health problems on
the other hand and should point at the fact that especially the poorer, less educated
23
people are exposed to environmental pollution. Making people aware of the relatedness
of environmental and social problems could push the issue of environment more
towards the top of the agenda.
Trying to find out on the knowledge of environmental problems that can be considered
to be in a two-way relationship with environmental awareness (both as prerequisite and
as consequence of awareness of environmental problems) the results showed that
there is still a lot of work to be done in informing people on the major ecological
problems. This is especially true for those on a global level like global warming or
depletion of ozone layer that only 3% of the interviewees were familiar with. Renewable
energies or conservation of biological diversity were even less known. In contrast to that
many people were aware of problems like air pollution (96%), water pollution (72%) and
household (57%) or industrial and chemical wastes (34%) that are not properly collected
and recycled or disposed. Air pollution was considered as the most serious problem by
a vast majority of people (70%), followed by water pollution and waste. These results
provide strong evidence for the fact that the efforts in educating people on environment
via media and at school have been fruitful: the most well-known environmental
problems are exactly the ones tackled in media and at school.
76% of the interviewees felt that protection of environment is both a task of the
individual as well as of the government, while 21% thought that it is only the individual’s
responsibility (versus 3% for only the government one’s). Most people stated to be
content with the government’s job as far as environmental policy is concerned and felt
that there had been a lot of progress over the last few years, 43% wished that
environmental issues should play an even more important role in politics.
Considering the figure of 97% of persons who felt that environmental protection is the
task of every individual, the next question to ask is if this belief is only a lip service
without any practical consequences or if people actually try to behave in an
environmental friendly way. This will be done in the next paragraph.
7.0 Behavior towards environment
24
Before evaluating the results of the household survey on the actual behavior towards
environment, I would like to address of few words of caution. Trying to assess people’s
actual behavior towards environment by asking them about it in the context of a survey
of environmental awareness will most probably lead to answers that are giving a too
positive impression of the actual situation, because people will try to please the
interviewers expectations.
83% of the interviewed persons reported to behave in an environmentally friendly way
somehow. Looking a little bit closer to what they actually did the by far most prominent
features of environmental friendly behavior were cleaning the house and its
surroundings (mentioned by 62%) and doing plantation (38%). Although both of these
actions contribute to a cleaner environment and help to reduce pollution by waste or air
pollution it has to be asked if the motivation of people for cleanliness and plantation is
not more due to their wish to live in a clean and green surrounding than to behave in an
environmentally friendly way. Saving water as reported by 9% of the interviewees was
the third and last activity that was mentioned by more than 5% of the interviewees.
It seems that people are motivated to behave in an environmentally friendly way if there
is an additional motivation to do so, e.g. saving money: 97% of the people reported to
save energy, out of the people who owned a motorized vehicle slightly more than 80%
claimed to switch the engine off when waiting at a red light.
In addition to that, the campaigns launched by the Ministry of Environment and Forests
and spread for example via the Eco-club scheme at school level like the use of cotton
bags instead of plastic ones seem to be fruitful to a certain degree: 48% of the
interviewed persons reported to use their own bags when shopping, some of them
referred to the campaign as their motivation to do so.
As far as the proper disposal of waste is concerned there is still a lot of work to do:
Throwing package materials simply away instead of using a dustbin is very common,
segregation of household waste as a prerequisite of proper recycling was reported by
25
only 18% of the interviewed persons. In my opinion, the problem of household waste
leading to degradation of soil and ground water and being a source of many diseases
caused by lack of hygiene should be addressed more forcefully, since in the field of
pollution by waste a lot of progress can be achieved quite easily by a change of
individual behavior.
8.0 Conclusion
This study gives clear evidence that the role of media in creating environmental
awareness is definitively a dominant one. This thesis can be supported with different
arguments:
On the one hand, the results of the household survey show that more than half of the
interviewees (52%) are convinced that the information provided by media has been
most important in making them aware of environmental problems, followed by 38% who
thought that it was their own confrontation with pollution in every day life, while
education at school or other institutions was considered to be most important in creating
environmental awareness by only 7% of the interviewed persons.
What has been most important to make you awareof environmental problems
1: information provided by media, 2: own experience in every day life
3: personal discussions, 4: education at school, college 5 other
Q13
54321
Per
cent
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
26
Why are media such a powerful instrument in creating environmental awareness?
It is not only that the average amount of time spent on watching television and reading
the newspaper per day is a tremendous one, but it also seems that the environmental
issues tackled in media are realized and reflected by viewers, readers and listeners at
least to some extent, while those issues that are more or less neglected by Indian
media, literally the global environmental problems, are not at all present in the public’s
consciousness.
Furthermore, media, in principle, are able to reach a vast percentage of India’s complex
society. Prerequisite for this is that environmental programs are especially designed for
all major target groups (age, level of education, language, urban and rural population
and so on). In this context, the role of radio should not be underestimated, although the
number of listeners and the amount of time spent on listening to the radio is obviously
lower than the corresponding figures of television and newspaper: Most of India’s rural
population does not have access to television and newspaper, India’s high percentage
of illiterate people cannot be addressed to via the medium of newspaper. Although the
coverage on environmental issues has increased over the last few years, the media’s
supply of information on environment is still quite low and one-sided: the variety of
environmental topics tackled should increase, the reporting should not only highlight the
environmental issues that are at the top of the political agenda, but the coverage should
be a more continual one. To realize these suggestions media have to be sensitized that,
in the field of environment, the mere offer of information is not sufficient. Concerning
environmental issues the role of media should not exhaust in providing information, but
there should be a motivational and educational perspective, too. Only if consequences
of environmental pollution are showed very clearly and connected to the individual’s
behavior, the information on environment provided by the media will be able to motivate
people to behave in a more environmentally friendly way.
The approach of entertainment-education is, in my opinion, a very promising one in
creating environmental awareness via the usage of media: it should be used more
27
extensively and spread to all the three different kind of mass media considered,
television, newspaper and radio.
Due to the general problems that have to be faced when media are used in an
educational approach, e.g. the lack of feedback, interactive communication, control of
the audience as well as the fact that media’s approach will always stay a theoretical
one, enhancing the efforts in creating environmental awareness should not be restricted
to media alone, however powerful they may be as an instrument of environmental
awareness creation.
Fortunately it has been realized recently that education at school is a powerful mean in
addressing environmental problems: It reaches vast parts of the population at young
age, a more environmental friendly behavior can be practiced on a daily basis and in
contrast to media direct feedback mechanism exist. In my opinion, the introduction of
Eco-club scheme and EVS will be able to both enhance the students’ knowledge on
environmental issues and motivate them to behave in a more environmental friendly
way in their every day life.
9.0 References
1. Bandhu, Desh and Dyal, R. (Eds.) (1999): Environmental Education for a
Sustainable Future, Indian Environmental Society, New Delhi 2. Das, Nandita (2001): A study on social and environmental impact of TV and radio
programmes, Center of Media Studies, New Delhi 3. Das, R.C., Baral, J.K., Sahu, N.C., Misras, M.K. (1998): The Environmental
Divide - The Dilemma of Developing Countries 4. National Council of Educational Research and Training (1997): Fifth Survey of
educational research 1988-92, Vol. I 5. Pant, S., Rogers, E. M., Singhal, A. (2000): Environmental Activism Through an
Entertainment-Education Radio Soap Opera in India, p. 173-177, in Oepen, M., Hamacher, W. (Eds.), Peter Lang Publishers, Frankfurt, Germany
10.0 Appendix: List of interviewees
1. Media Newspaper:
28
- The Times of India
7, Bajadurshah Zafar Marg New Delhi –110002
Mr. Umesh Anad, Editor (Delhi), Ph.: 9810502932 Ms. Nonia Walia, Correspondent Ph.: 3492212
- The Hindu
I.N.S. Building Rafi Marg New Delhi – 110 001 Mr. Ashok Kalkur, City Editor Ph.: 3715426, 3715427
Mr. K. Kannan, Prin. Correspondent Ph.: 3715426, 3715427 Mr. P. Sunderrajan, Special Correspondent Ph.: 3715426, 3710179, Res.: 2619847
News Agency:
- Mr. Parvinder Singh United News of India (UNI) Ph.: O.: 3718861, Res.: 6194751
Magazine:
- Down to Earth Society for Environmental Communications 41, Institutional Area Tughlakabad New Delhi, 110 062 Mr. Richard Mahapatra, Senior Correspondent Ph.: 6081110, 6086394
Radio:
- All India Radio Akashwani Bhawan Parliament Street New Delhi
29
Mr. W. A. Magazine, Director Commercial Ms. Alka Pathak, Director of Spoken Word Ph.: 3711812
Television:
- Doordashan Mandhi House Copernicus Marg New Delhi Mr. Y.P. Singh, Controller (Current Affairs)
Ph.: 3389615 Ms. Usha Bhasin, Controller of Programs Ph.: 3386603
2. School Principals and Teachers
- Red Roses Public School
Shri R.R. Metha Education Trust D Block, Saket New Delhi Mrs. K. Nayyar, Principal
Ph.: School: 6962977, Res.: 6358474
- St. Anthony’s Senior Secondary School, Convent School C 6, SDA, Hauz Khaz New Delhi Ms. Anita Krishnan, teacher Ph.: 6514779
- Central Academy Senior Secondary School (gov.)
Sector – 13, R.K. Puram, Saket New Delhi
Mr. H.L. Verma, principal
Ms. Sonia, teacher (Eco-club)
- Government Sarvodayabal Vidyalaya School J Block, Saket New Delhi 17
30
Mrs. Madhu Gupta, vice principal Mr. R. F. Eufshar, teacher (EVS) Mr. R. K. Verma, teacher
3. Government officials
- Ministry of Environment & Forests (Govt. of India)
Paryavaran Bhawan CGO Complex, Lodi Road New Delhi - 110003
Ms. Sanchita Jindal, Joint Director Ph.: 4360488 (responsible for National Environmental Awareness Campaigns)
Mr. N. V. Reddy, Deputy Secretary
Ph.: 4362065 (responsible for Eco-clubs, media & environment) Dr. D Bandopadthyay, Director (Environment & Information) Ph.: 4360419 (responsible for ENVIS network)
4. Experts
- Ms. Usha Rai, Deputy Director PII Coordinator: Population and Gender Project, former environmental journalist Sapru House Annexe, Barakhamba Road New Delhi – 110001 Ph.: 3354809, 3738560
For More Information Contact: Alka Tomar Envis Co-ordinator
CMS ENVIS Centre Centre for Media Studies Research House, Community Centre, Saket, New Delhi – 110017 Phone 26864020, 26851660 Fax: 26968282, Email: [email protected]